The Shepherd’s Dog

Description

Iron and WineThe Shepherd’s Dogon LP + MP3

Before 2007’sThe Shepherd’s Dog, the last we heard fromIron and Winewas the six songs comprisingWoman Kingreleased in 2005. What distinguishedWoman Kingfrom its predecessors was the deepening integration of spiraling, dense opuses (“Gray Stables, “Evening on the Ground (Lilith’s Song)”) with intimate confessionals (“Jezebel, “My Lady’s House”).OnThe Shepherd’s Dog,this integration is complete. Compositionally, it isIron and Wine‘s most ambitious and accomplished recording to date. Its also the most satisfying.

While many of us learned ofIron and Wineby way ofSam Beam‘s tender and spare rendering ofThe Postal Service‘s “Such Great Heights” on theGarden Statesoundtrack, those who dug deeper discovered a classic American tunesmith with a precocious musical signature. Songs like “Lion’s Mane and “Naked as We Came” are remarkable demonstrations of craft: musically memorable, lyrically evocative, and casually atmospheric.

The whole album breathes. Its seductive rhythms percolate and undulate, from the psych-pop of “Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car” to the album’s last dancea waltz”Flightless Bird, American Mouth. And there’s nary a trapkit on the whole album.

Iron and WineThe Shepherd’s DogTrack Listing:

1. Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car
2. White Tooth Man
3. Lovesong of the Buzzard
4. Carousel
5. House by the Sea
6. Innocent Bones
7. Wolves (Song of the Shepherds Dog)
8. Resurrection Fern
9. Boy with a Coin
10. The Devil Never Sleeps
11. Peace Beneath the City
12. Flightless Bird, American Mouth